Is Jesus Really the Only Way?

 “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment.” – Hebrews 10:26-27

Perhaps you’ve seen the movie: God’s Not Dead. The 2014 film tells the story of a first semester college student named Shane Harper who enrolls in a philosophy course and experiences a formidable challenge on the first day of class. You see, he is a committed Christian, and his professor is a militant atheist who requires every student to sign this simple statement in order to pass the class: “God is dead.” One by one, all the students in the class take out a sheet of paper and sign the statement. All of them…except for Shane. He refuses to sign it, and as a result, the professor requires him to spend the next three class sessions doing his best to prove that God’s Not Dead.

As you probably know, by many measures Christianity is on a decline in America. Fifty years ago, the overwhelming majority of Americans identified as “Christian” and considered the United States to be a Christian nation. But as much as I hate to admit it, America is a Christian nation no longer. Each year hundreds of churches close their doors. More than ever before, Christians are marginalized and criticized. A large percentage of Americans don’t believe the Bible to be God’s word. And millions of Americans—even many professed “Christians”—proclaim, “If there is a heaven, Jesus is certainly not the only way to get there.”

In this age of inclusivity and tolerance, many Christians are hesitant or embarrassed to affirm the exclusivity of the gospel. They deem it to be a huge cultural blunder to declare Christianity to be true and every other religion to be wrong. Let’s face it: We don’t like to be labeled “intolerant,” “narrow-minded” or “bigoted” by our culture. Therefore, we find ourselves second-guessing what the New Testament teaches about heaven. We think: Perhaps Christians have been too narrow-minded with their doctrine of salvation. Maybe we have misunderstood what Jesus and Scripture teach about salvation. Could it be that our belief in “Christ alone” is illogical and doesn’t stand up to intellectual scrutiny?

Allow me to share something very important that Christians everywhere need to hear—three proofs that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Proof #1: Jesus revealed it. Throughout the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Jesus reveals this truth over and over. For example, in John 3:16-17, Jesus makes it clear that he is “the” Savior from whom we receive eternal life. In John 11:25, Jesus reveals himself as the “resurrection and the life.” In Matthew 28:18, Jesus tells his followers that he has “all authority in heaven.” In other words, Jesus oversees all of heaven, even the front gate. There’s no back door, and there’s no appeal to a higher power, because Jesus is the highest power. And Jesus couldn’t have been more clear than he is in John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So, is Jesus the only way to heaven? Yes! Jesus revealed it.

Proof #2: The New Testament confirms it. Time and again, the Book of Acts and the epistles confirm that Jesus provides the only path to salvation. In Acts 4:12, when the Apostle Peter is being pressured to stop preaching in Jesus’ name, he boldly proclaims, “Salvation is found in no one else [besides Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Paul declares in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” And according to Hebrews 10:26-27, if we reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, there is no other path to salvation. Inevitably, all those who reject Christ will have to face the music: “judgment and raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”

Proof #3: Logic proves it. Once we understand that Jesus Christ and the New Testament speak in harmony regarding salvation through Christ alone, it is completely illogical for any Bible-believing Christian to come to any conclusion other than this: Jesus is the only way to heaven. Now, Christians get accused all the time of clinging to beliefs that are too narrow-minded and too exclusive. But the fact is: All truth is narrow-minded and exclusive. Think about it: The truth that “two plus two equals four” is exclusive. Basic arithmetic doesn’t allow for any other conclusion. Two plus two can never equal three, five, seventeen or 38,000. Two plus two always equals four. Every truth is equally narrow-minded. Racism is wrong. Period! First degree murder is evil. Period! Incest, rape and armed robbery are always bad. Case closed! All truth and all truth claims are exclusive, narrow-minded and intolerant. Truth couldn’t care less about being politically correct. Truth doesn’t dabble in the “touchy-feely.” Truth is truth whether we like it or not.

In our culture where a growing number of Christians are more concerned with being politically correct than biblically correct, we need to embrace and speak the truth regarding salvation and heaven. We need to lock arms with Shane Harper and boldly proclaim the gospel. Pastor John MacArthur says it well: “As long as Christians are being duped or intimidated into softening the bold claims of Christ and widening the narrow road, the church will make no headway against postmodernism. We need to recover the distinctiveness of the gospel. We need to regain our confidence in the power of God’s truth. And we need to proclaim boldly that Christ is the only true hope for the people of this world. That may not be what people want to hear…but it is true nonetheless. [Therefore,] it is all the more urgent that we rise above all voices of confusion in the world and say so.”

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.

The Difference Between Doubt and Unbelief

"All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus' words, acknowledged that God's way was right.... But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves."- Luke 7:29-30

A cocky young science professor began teaching at a small Midwest university. On the first day of class, it took his students less than five minutes to figure out that he was a strong atheist—and proud of it. He told the class: “Unless you shake off old-fashioned views and act for yourself, the world will leave you behind. Putting your faith in God won’t get you anywhere. Take rain-making. When the farmers prayed for rain, what did they get? The Dust Bowl. Now all they do is send up a plane, drop some chemicals on a cloud, and it rains. No question about that, is there?”

To the professor’s surprise, a farm boy sitting in the back row spoke up. “Professor, there’s still one question: Who gives us the cloud?”

The cocky professor hadn’t figured on that simple piece of evidence, and my guess is he wasn’t thrilled to have a student come along and poke a big hole in his argument. Did he take this new element into account? My guess is no—the professor had a big case of unbelief, and he would be in no hurry to part with it. On the other hand, many a committed Christian deals with doubt—even one as fervent and devoted as John the Baptist.

When John the Baptist had his moment of doubt while in prison and sent a message to Jesus, we read in Luke 7 that John’s disciples returned to John with Jesus’ answer. That reply showed that Jesus was a clear fulfillment of at least three different Old Testament prophesies. After John received that message, all indications are that he persevered in his faith. From his prison cell, John served Jesus faithfully until his dying day.

And for people who believed the truth about John the Baptist—that he was the promised prophet and the forerunner to the coming Christ—it was natural for them to believe the truth about Jesus. Even the tax collectors who had been baptized by John acknowledged that John was the promised forerunner to the Christ, and that Jesus himself was the promised Christ (Luke 7:29). But as we read on in verse 30, “the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.”

In other words, the religious leaders who didn’t believe in John rejected John’s call to repent and be baptized in preparation for the coming Messiah. And since they rejected his call to get ready for Jesus’ coming, it shouldn’t surprise us that they weren’t willing to believe in Jesus when he came. God had great plans for the Jewish religious leaders, but when they rejected John the Baptist, they rejected God’s plans for them. And once they started down the path of unbelief, they wouldn’t stop until Jesus was dead with his blood on their hands.

In verses 31-32, Jesus compared the religious leaders to a bunch of brats throwing a tantrum because the other kids aren’t playing by their rules. “For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ‘sinners.’” No matter what John the Baptist or Jesus did, it wasn’t good enough for the Pharisees. So, they did what virtually every unbeliever has done over the past 2,000 years: They attempted to rationalize their unbelief by criticizing and even slandering God’s chosen leaders with accusations pulled out of thin air.

 Bottom line: The religious leaders’ hateful criticism of John and Jesus stemmed from their stubborn unbelief. And their unbelief was literally insane. Their refusal to accept the clear, observable facts about John and Jesus was insane. Their slanderous accusations were insane. And their jealous, vengeful drive to murder Jesus was especially insane. They refused to see the clear truth that John was the forerunner, and Jesus was the Christ. God had made sure that there was plenty of evidence to substantiate these two facts. As Jesus said in verse 35, “Wisdom is proved right by all her children.”

In Luke 7:18-23, John the Baptist struggled with doubt. In verses 7:24-35, Jesus talks about the religious leaders who were plagued by unbelief. And there’s a big difference between the two. Doubt is a matter of the MIND, but unbelief is a matter of the WILL. It’s one thing to doubt God’s goodness and plans because we can’t wrap our minds around it. It’s quite another thing to stubbornly refuse to believe His word and obey His word when the evidence is right in front of our faces.

Doubt is often nourished by physical and emotional strain, such as John’s when he was in prison, but unbelief is nourished by a stubborn heart that refuses to accept the evidence. Unbelief puts our circumstance between us and God, but faith—even doubting faith—puts God between us and our circumstance. May we always put God between us and our trials.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com and join us for worship Sundays at 10 am.

The Church: Who Needs It?

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

– 1 Corinthians 12:27

Perhaps when you were a child, church attendance wasn’t optional in your family. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t dare ask my parents, “Could I just stay home today?” I was taught from a very young age that Sunday is “the Lord’s Day” (the Christian equivalent of the Jewish Sabbath Day). So, when we skip church, we are disobeying the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.”

Well, that perspective seems long gone. Gone are the days when the overwhelming majority of Americans were convinced that Christianity and weekly church attendance are inseparable; you can’t have one without the other. In today’s busy world, most Christians view church attendance as optional, and far too often other weekend options (i.e., sports, parties, overtime and rest) take precedence. We are now at a point when some atheists have much better church attendance than Christians. 

In recent years, thousands of atheists across America have discovered something that many Christians have forgotten: attending church is vitally important and even…fun. Over the past five years, atheist churches (usually called “gatherings”) have popped up all over Great Britain and the U.S. And these gatherings are filled with inspirational teaching, singing and loving fellowship.  Sound familiar? It’s quite a paradox: Atheist communities love the church but don’t like God or Jesus. Conversely, many Christians love God and Jesus but don’t like the church.

Could it be that atheists have discovered something that many Christians have long forgotten? I think so. They have discovered that their own stripped-down version of the church is far superior to isolation. Even without Christ, their gatherings meet a need for fellowship and give them a sense of belonging. How much more so is this the case when Christians meet? Without Christ, atheistic churches bring some value to their members. But with Christ, Christian churches bring infinite value to their members.

There are three key metaphors used for Christ’s Church in the New Testament—metaphors that help us grasp how very important the church is. First, the Church is the Body of Christ. In both Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul likens the church to a human body. Just as a body is made up of many parts that each serve a specific purpose, so too the Church has many members—each having an important role to fill. The truth is: The Church can exist without you, but it will be the less for it. And you can exist without the Church, but you will be the less for it. Just as an index finger or big toe is severely handicapped on its own, so too is a Christian spiritually handicapped when he isolates himself from the Body of Christ.

Second, the Church is the Family of God. In 1 Peter 2:17, we are instructed to “love the brotherhood of believers.” Christians call each other “brothers and sisters” because, at the point of conversion, each of us is adopted into God’s family. God becomes our true Father, and we become a cherished member of His household. But as in any family, there is occasional sibling rivalry in the Church. These times of quarreling may be uncomfortable and a bit unnerving, but they should never lead us to abandon our brothers and sisters. Many Christians turn on a dime to lock arms with their blood relatives in times of need. How much more should we be quick to lock arms with our Christian brothers and sisters whose adoptions have been secured by the precious blood of Christ?

Third, the Church is the Bride of Christ. In Revelation 21, the Church is called Christ’s bride. Although this statement is true: “Jesus died on the cross for my sins,” it is more accurate to say, “Jesus died on the cross for the Church’s sins.” He spilled his blood so that his bride (all Christians together) could be washed clean and become the pure, undefiled bride of Christ. This powerful metaphor emphasizes Christ’s great love for the Church. To put it simply: Jesus adores his Church…warts, scars, body odor and all. No one knows the Church’s hang-ups and shortcomings better than Jesus. If anyone ever had a legitimate reason for abandoning the Church it would be Jesus. But he never has and never will leave the Church. Why not? Because he loves it as his bride. He is committed to it for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health. In the same way, he calls every Christian to love and stay committed to His Church till death do us part.

Time will tell how long atheistic assemblies will survive. Regardless, the Church of Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, because the Church of Jesus Christ has the most important building block of any life-changing church: Christ himself. Every church has problems. No church is perfect. (If you find a perfect church, please don’t join it, because then it won’t be perfect anymore.) The Church is the glorious Body of Christ, the Family of God and the Bride of Christ. The Church needs you, and you need the Church. Even atheists are realizing this fact.  

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information,

visit www.fccvv.com  and join us for worship Sundays at 10 am.